Orpheus and Eurydice
by Sauri
Summary: [Two-shot][Gruvia] He will descend to hell while she will face the god of death. And both will play a game that might become their undoing.
1. Orpheus

I went and butchered a perfectly beautiful myth for fanfic, but I couldn't _resist._ I hope those who like the legend will still like this story.

The second part will be published the next week; it's not fully written, but I have it all sketched and I want to finish it before going back to uni.

Enjoy!

 **Disclaimer:** _Fairy Tail_ belongs to Hiro Mashima, and I only write this for my personal enjoyment and share it so others can enjoy it too.

* * *

 **Orpheus  
**

 _._

Gray chokes on tears and dust, on sorrow, closes his eyes, lets her go, and remembers:

 _What is gone cannot be brought back._

It's a lesson engraved on his flesh and written in his blood, a lifetime of sacrifices making it sure to be so. It spills over, makes him fight onwards even when looking back, and if sometimes he's bent askew, dark whispers of promises and wishes reaching his ears, no one says a thing.

Then the war ends, the battle is over and he learns from Zeref and Natsu and E.N.D. that all was a lie.

The harsh truths of life sound distant and distorted if doubted enough, and his grief and despair are far greater. What madness can incite outshines everything else, and he holds more than a glass of it, hidden as it is in the corners of his mind, for it to swarm.

He unearths Juvia, holds her hand as if she were alive.

What is gone can be brought back as long as you grasp for it, Gray decides, and he has had enough of blood spilled on his behalf, blood that curses through his veins now, to care about what the rules say.

* * *

Juvia spins around the nothing, around herself, keeps fear at bay, and remembers:

 _A life full of love is a fulfilled life._

It's the path she has chosen to walk on, the only one that has made her felt worthy, made the world around her felt worthy. It did so, too, giving her the best she could have dreamt of. There has been no doubt when living for love, and there has been no doubt when dying for love.

Yet, when she expected the unknown awaiting beyond her eternally closed lids, there is nothing at the other side.

"This is not what you have hoped for, I guess," someone says. "It's not what I've hoped for, at least."

Juvia turns, meets the most hollow eyes she's ever seen in a face she cannot get a hold of even if she tried. It's a thousand people and no one at the same time, men and women and beasts all together and all separate, blue and green and pink and red and none, and it glides in the nothing as if at home.

"Who are you?" Juvia asks, equal parts curious and afraid.

"This is Death, child," it says sweetly. "Many names I have been assigned, but I reckon your kind might know me as Ankhseram."

* * *

"Gray, this is madness," Natsu hisses, tries to stop him before leaving. "The dead do not come back!"

"And yet, here you are," he sneers, leers at the irony.

"And the price Zeref had to pay was too great," Lucy intervenes, all reason and good will; those are the last things he needs. "It created calamity after disaster after tragedy, not only for him but for the whole world; you cannot think it will work when it never did to begin with."

"I'll make it work," he answers with spit, with conviction. "I'll choose the price this time and really make it work. Don't stop me on this." Natsu glares at the warning, Gray growls. "You _owe_ me, and you know this. I allowed you have your say when Zeref came clean even though you knew what I gave up in the middle."

They both flinch and retreat, their gazes mournful as Lucy sends him off. "Juvia wouldn't have wanted this."

"No," Gray concedes, a ribbon of regret slipping in his heart as he steps out the door. "But I do."

People murmur under their breath, glance from the corner of their vision at him when he asks about necromancy and forgotten spells and the blackest of magic. Research he explains, but there must be something on him, his stare or his words, giving away what he keeps inside. Though he ignores them all, ignores the way fear is mounting and piling, and marches on a quest many deem treacherous.

Gray doesn't waver when doors are shut in his face and books taken from him, doesn't slow down when a week passes and then another and then a month. He lives from the gold of menial jobs and lives for the obsession that never comes to fruition for only those who live in the night and the dark can tell its secrets, and so it comes the day he meets one of its inhabitants.

"I have heard about you." A man concealed behind a hood slices in the seat next to him. "Heard about your research and how enthusiastic you are about the death and the living," he purrs, a smile like a wolf's and a breath that stinks of putrid waters. "What if I told you I know about the gamble for you to play?"

Gray remembers a time when he still believed, when his mother would tuck him in bed and tell him tales as old as the world. Precautionary tales, warning tales that spoke about the Big Bad Wolf, the witch and the truant; about sharp claws, poisoned apples and hidden daggers. Gray still remembers, even after all this time, so he slicks away from the stranger with the sign of caution imprinted on his mind.

But Gray is also a desperate, broken man, and for such someone, this temptation sounds like the answer to all his prayers. A ray of hope that worms into hearts, twist souls and makes out of men fools.

He slides closer to the wolf, the witch, the truant; closer to the chance and the wish. "What do I have to do?"

* * *

"It's your sole fault you are stuck here, I dare say," Ankhseram hums, twists her face to his with interest. "Neither dead nor alive, what a fate."

Her throat parches, words dying in her tongue as her gaze spins out of focus when confronting the embodiment of all that ceased, building a pounding in her skull that cannot be quieted. She averts her eyes, fast, before she loses what little remains of her when looking upon a face with hundred eyes and hundred mouths.

"How so?" Juvia prods at last, breathing cut short. "And where's is here?"

"The Limbo is where we are and blood is the reason, you silly child." It snarls, its variety of features hideous when wrinkled. "Blood is not to be taken lightly, foolish child; it carries a power and rawness more potent than you can even comprehend, the base of magic and life, and you gave it all away to that man's of yours."

"B-but Juvia had to!" she protest, indignation rearing its head. "If she didn't Gray-sama'd have—!"

"Hush. I know."Ankhseram dismissively waves a hand that is young, then old, then a paw. "The point is, now you're linked to that man and he to you, and therefore you cannot quite die while he lives. So the Limbo, the nothing, will be where you stay as long as he breathes."

Juvia pauses at the words, looks around and finds nothing. Nothing but her and it, and her situation becomes clear at last, her dead heart wheezing before dropping to her stomach like a rotten fruit. She hugs herself with arms that hold no warm. Years upon years of this, the thought curls and twists and thrums through all her being, years upon years where she'll be alone, sustained by nothing but a link that holds a promise and a curse.

"I'm curious," Ankhseram comments idly, "so answer me if you will: do you now regret what you did?"

Juvia glares at the question and the mock behind its tone; straightens before the God of Death and Life.

"No. Never," she answers with the truth. "How could Juvia regret saving the person she loves most?"

"Ah, but do you fear what is to come?"

The smile directed at her is all edges and curves, ever changing and never still, much like its holder who cannot take a definite form, and the smile widens, sharpens, stretches when she blanches at her own weakness.

"Yes," she weeps. How could she not? "Very much so."

* * *

They walk to a cave hidden deep in the forest that has been rumored to be haunted since the beginnings of time, but it's still a simple, common cave, and Gray has the infuriating notion that he might have been played with. He glares at the strange, dark man that, now that he looks twice, in this light and that light, it might be a woman.

"Is this it?" Gray grits. "Is this the entrance?"

"Here, yes," the man-woman says. "I only have to open the path for you to walk in."

He (she?) pulls out a knife, sharp and lithe, and Gray steps back expecting the worst until, instead of his blood, it's the stranger's blood what drops from the cut on her (his?) palm. The stranger smiles at him, knowingly, cunningly, all sharp and blunt, and smears the blood on the rocks that form the mouth of the cave.

The ground shakes, the light dims and Gray watches, horrified as much as marveled, how the rock and the earth exhale as if alive, sift around, change form, turn back; the mud ascends and spreads while the grass withers; the darkness and the light part before his eyes, create a void; and then, the very world moans as everything settles back.

Gray watches how staircase that leads deep into the heart of planet shapes in seconds, how statues are created out of thin air, of men and women who seem grieving, who seem fearing, who seem dying of hunger, agony and disease. He watches how magic, the very essence of magic, works to open a path to the underworld, and shudders at the sheer power behind it all.

"How did you do that?" he demands, the gnawing in his throat making it hard to speak. "Who are you?"

"No questions, you promised." A shush, the deep cut in the palm is gone. "Now, do you remember the rules?"

"Don't eat. Don't drink. Don't take anything. Don't talk to anyone who isn't Juvia or the God of Death and Life," he recites, glowers when the stranger's smile broadens. "And never ever look back."

The man-woman claps. It rings out like scorn in Gray's ears.

"Good job. The place will try to tempt you, it always does, but fail and you'll never come back." The stranger pats him in the back, extends a hand in invitation and looks back at him with raised eyebrows. "Afraid?"

Gray shakes his head, no, and lies. He takes all the fears and trepidation and doubts, thrusts them into a box that is shelved into the depth of his mind. He imagines Juvia, joyful Juvia who gave her life in exchange of his without a hesitation, and his resolution steels in hot iron and shared blood.

"I want to do this." _I want her back._ "I agreed." _I cannot go back, not this time._

"Indeed you did; thrice at that."

Gray closes his eyes, sees the future that could be if he managed to success. "I did."

"Good luck bringing back what you lost," whispers the man-woman, and Gray wipes his head to search for the sharp, blunt smile under the hood one last time, except there stands no one next to him anymore.

He gulps.

The first step into the underworld welcomes him with open arms.

* * *

"Tell, would you like another chance?"

Juvia pauses; her head lifts, eyes flickering to the god. Her mind rails, her body sags. She mouths the offer to herself, the words soundlessly dripping like honey, and then she frowns.

"What is the price?"she asks.

"Smart girl. Clever girl," Ankhseram praises with a pat in her head. "But there is no price, only a gamble, and the bet is, of course, your life."

"Juvia doesn't have a life that is hers to give."

"Foolish humans," it sneers. "There is more than one life for each soul, some are even eternal. I should know, I domain over all deaths and lives. This, what you suffer here? Nothing but the beginning of another life."

Juvia nods absentmindedly. Her thoughts travel to the possibilities: another chance to live, another chance to be with Gray, another chance to stand side by side with Fairy Tail, and her resolve crumbles a bit, her want increasing. She could get out of the Limbo, she could seize all she has ever wanted and live by loving the same way she's died by loving.

She can grasp a future she thought lost in the moment she saw Gray, his sword incising his abdomen by his own hands, and heard Gray, his words conveying all she needed to know. Her heart hammers, blood cursing under her skin, thrumming and warming, and a word seeps into her bones, the parting gift given by her dear Gray.

 _Love, love, love._

Her mouth twists upwards. She's always been a selfish, selfish girl.

"What is the bet?"

"You will know soon." Ankhseram says, shrugs at her frown. Then, smiles as it says, "I still need to prepare the game. Don't worry, however, all will be ready before long. What do you say?"

She closes her eyes, imagines Gray, aloof Gray who was ready to die with her. Her resolution siphons out in spades.

 _Love, love, love._

"Juvia would like it," she says, words brimming with hope.

The smile becomes a grin. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"A third time: even for the consequence you might pay if you lose?"

"Yes!"

"So be it."

The grin transforms into a snake's smirk, venomous, and Juvia stiffens under its weight.

* * *

Gray walks down a staircase that is endless, obscure and solitary. He cannot see, cannot hear, cannot smell, nothing except sense the touch of soil under his feet. His mind twists the shadows into something even darker, sinister; twirls the stranger's words into threats that lead nowhere, lies; converts his only hope into nightmares.

There is nothing, and then there is him.

He cries, and cries, and cries; his wits betraying his soul and his soul his feelings.

He wipes them all.

He continues to walk down the stairs and deep into where no living has entered.

Then, his stomach growls. There is light.

The room with an opulent banquet befitting of a king appears at the bottom of the steps. Chicken rice, shrimp, lobster and fries smothered in cheese; toast slathered with peanut and jam, monkfish liver with grated daikon and crispy, rice-batter crepes; fruit that is fresh and meat that is as red as it is delicious, fishes big and small, smelling of sea, all prepared and all inviting.

His mouth waters, his teeth clench and there is an emptiness in his belly that could only be filled with food.

Gray keeps on walking.

 _Don't eat._

His throat dries, and the next room is nothing but drinks and water; beer, cocktail and whiskey; orange, apple and melon juice; lemonade, wine and sorbets of all kinds and of all savors, and he is nothing but a thirsty man, begging for a drop to satiate the parchedness of his mouth.

Gray thirsts, and Gray keeps on walking.

 _Don't drink._

There is gold in the next room, and this one is far, far easier than the previous two. He cares not about rubies, diamonds and emeralds; cares not about tapestries ancient and jars valuable; cares not about books that hum knowledge and power and guarantee desires coming true.

Gray scoffs, keeps on walking.

 _Don't take anything._

The room full of mirrors reflect back what he has never hoped to see ever again. Ur smiles at him, perched in the full glass hanging from the roof: _Gray, I heard things about you, how strong you've become, how you've finally made a home, tell me—_

His mother opens her arms, motherly, bids him in the round mirror in the floor: _Come close, son, I want to hear your stories. Tell me about friends and the happiness—_

His father is last, in the looking glass next to the door, and he puffs his chest in pride: _You won, as I thought you would, and you lived on. Tell me, I want to hear you, son, so tell me—_

He stops for the first time, mouth open in an exclamation, words forming, bursting and wishing to be spoken. He watches these faces he loves so much, something thawing, cracking, breaking inside him, and remembers that this is still the land of the death.

Gray screams, weeps, but keeps on walking.

 _Don't talk to anyone._

Round, round, round it goes, and Gray snaps, snaps, snaps. He sweats and he rages and he gives up a thousand times before reaching the end, and once he does, he is too close to be gone than to be there.

He is brave, though, he is confident, and when his gaze lifts from the nothing, he sees Juvia, a blessing and a promise. She stands before him, a worried glint slithering its way into her dark, clean eyes, and he sighs in relief, in regret and in grief.

"It worked; it really, really worked," Gray sobs into the air, his lung rupturing and his whole body shaking. The blood in his veins is warm once again. "I was so sure, I was… Juvia—"

He extends a trembling hand to touch her. She recoils.

Gray frowns, quivers, doubts.

"Juvia?"

"Now, now," a voice says behind her. "You still have a game to finish, Gray Fullbuster. Don't be hasty."

 _._


	2. Eurydice

Uhm, it didn't come out exactly as I wanted it to be, I have to rewrite some parts multiple times and still I'm not happy, but here it is as promised. Also, I want to point out that I got inspiration from other tales besides Orpheus' myth although maybe they aren't that noticeable lol

Besides this, the chapter is not edited, so beware errors and blunders ahead!

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Eurydice**

 **.**

Juvia exhales, her impatience growing when the answers keep shunning her. She's been waiting long enough, taming the bubbling notion of making a mistake in her chest, and Ankhseram has stood there all along, intently eying the nothingness surrounding them with a fixation that makes her shudder.

There's a game in play, and she yet has to know the rules. She dips her head to the chest, the prickle of tears stinging, but holds them back. Be it so, Juvia resolves, there's a game, and it's a game she'll win despite being a simple pawn.

She swears as such for the future she craves. For the man she loves. For the friend she fights for.

Ankhseram hums in delight next to her.

"Here he comes," it says.

She freezes; her heart leaps in her breast, drops and stays still. Her fingers claw at her arms, a name fills her mouth, touches her teeth, urges her tongue, unsaid. She looks up to the being with the thousand faces, bites her lower lip until blood draws, warm and pulsing.

"Who?"

"The rules you are bound to are as follows: You won't touch him. You won't speak to him. Not until you are well outside of the Limbo. That's the gamble you choose to bet on."

Dread crawls up and out of her mouth.

"Whom?" she asks again.

"Gray Fullbuster, obviously," it says. "He is here to get you back. Or trying to, anyway."

Her knees buckle.

"This was no part of the bargain," she whispers, weak. "Juvia is the one who is betting, not Gray-sama."

Ankhseram seizes her with an unreadable face, no human or beast standing in its place. It stretches an arm, a child's arm, and caresses the side of her cheek with a tenderness that makes her guts shrink.

"Not your choice, child," it shushes, words laces with sickly sweetness. "He agreed on his own accord and he's going to pay on his own accord." It straightens back, the burden of its different stares never leaving her, and warns, "And a deal thrice agreed is not to be broken."

Juvia shakes. A monster coils inside her, the sadness giving away to despair, and the despair to anger. She glares, faces on the God of Death and Life, steps forward in defiance. Her body shivers, in fury and in misery.

"You lied," she sputters, her voice poison.

Ankhseram shrugs.

"I did not." The truth.

Juvia jeers, sneers.

"But you never said that there is another piece to the bet."

The laugh that comes from Ankhseram drips with disdain, with knowledge gathered upon millenniums. It watches her through eyes that are blue, black, yellow, green, then nothing, and Juvia cedes in powerlessness.

"You will learn," it says.

* * *

"Why isn't she speaking?" is the first thing Gray asks, furious, and then the second materializes as promptly, "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing at all," Ankhseram reassures. "Your darling is as well as she can be."

Gray scowls darkly, searches a lie that he cannot see. "You didn't answer the first question."

"And I don't intend to." It sticks up its noses high in the air, lips graced with a grin. "It's a secret between her and me."

Juvia gifts him a wan smile, almost a shadow of the ones she usually wore around him, and his brain itches, an uncertainty and a warning, his body boiling at the mere idea of having fallen short even before the beginning.

 _All is right_ , she's trying to tell but all he can think is, _something is wrong._

"I still can leave with her, right?" Gray demands, his fist clenched. "Get her out of here without any repercussion."

"That was the deal," Ankhseram says. "She will follow right behind you up the path out here." The stare that accompanies his words reeks of a trap. "Still remember the rules of our game?

Gray pauses, thinks, and his eyes widen at the implication. Magic crackles out his fingers, teeth faring as if a beast.

 _Never look back._

He seethes.

"I do," he spats. "Just right behind me, all the way. No foul play there?"

Ankhseram scoffs. "My word," it says. "And will you give me your live if meet with failure, no foul play?

"My word," Gray snorts, spins around and out of the entrance and the exit without a look back.

They walk up the cave, up the lightless stairs, through the rooms with the mirrors and jewels and the food and the drinks. There is no sound except Gray's steps, nor wisp of wind of someone moving behind him, nor warmth that a body radiates, and Gray fears, fears, fears.

Gray fears and he sweats and he collapses a little bit inside.

His hands twitch to grab behind, his legs tremble under the weight of the task and the muscles of his neck pull, strain. He shuts his eyes, gives a step forward, a second, a third, then another one, maybe stumbles in the way, and that's how he manages to little by little comply with his part of the deal.

 _Never look back._

That's been the condition, but for someone who has spent his life precisely doing that (mother, father, Ur, Ultear, Juvia, Juvia, _Juvia_ ) it's impossible not to.

The darkness engulfs the surroundings, his mind as well, and it wanders around thoughts that force him to bite down on his lip. What if it had been a lie? What if Juvia wasn't following him anymore? What if she couldn't? But it has been a two-way deal, and Juvia would always be there for him and nothing would stop her, so she has to be just behind him as promised.

That's the game.

Gray hopes, hopes, hopes, withers and then hopes again.

And so he meets light at the end of the tunnel, only then allowing himself to truly breathe. Only a bit more before being able to see, to touch, to live with her; only a bit more before the tragedy ends.

Then the earth quakes, rocks dribble around them, a howl in the distance, and Gray trips backwards. He doesn't fall, though he steps back one, two, three stairs, and touches nothing in the meantime.

No one behind him.

He halts.

( _Don't, don't, don't._ )

His mind yowls, a pound against his skull; his heart dives, heavy and punishing. His teeth rattle against each other and his hands tremble.

There's nothing; he's touched nothing when in any other occasion he should have. No one's fast enough to avoid an unpredictable trip like that.

There's no one, no Juvia and no nothing.

He should know better, really, but—

The ringing in his ears deafens, his reason turns into ash, the blood in his veins freezes over, the world goes blank.

His neck cranes to the right, his eyes dart in search of blue and white, in search of what should be there ( _look back, look back, look back_ ) and—

He can't.

Warm, calloused hands, hands he has come to know so well, hands his has longed for, brush, grasp, hold his face in place; hold him firm. They bend him forward, to the light, and a quivering gasp leaves his lips.

 _Never look back,_ Juvia's telling him, and he obeys.

Gray clasps the hand close with his, tightly, and sprints to the exit.

No one is taking her from him again.

* * *

Ankhseram comes around behind her, sways in the nothing listlessly, and drops before her with an amused expression creasing the hundred folds of its face.

"Angry even now?" it toots. "Don't be. I've observed Fairy Tail, that silly guild of yours, for quite awhile and you all seem to praise friendship and helping each other out." Scarifying for each other it wants to say, Juvia knows, but doesn't correct. "You should be elated with the help that's coming your way."

Her glower is cutting, her lips puckered into a scowl.

"Not as long as puts Gray-sama in risk's way," she says.

"Hmm."

Juvia huffs, shrinks at the path laid out before her. "Is there any reason for it?"she asks.

"Why I was around your guild? Easy, Mavis was there and I always liked to keep watch on those who posses my curse."Ankhseram's smirk is playfully condescending, and it continues despite her best expression of annoyance. "Or do you mean why Gray Fullbuster has to join the party? Here's your answer: no one can escape my domain unless they have help from the other side, that is."

She meets the snide with silence, the sarcasm with obstinacy, and when it prods, she mocks with wordless glares. The question still hangs, heavy and chocking. Ankhseram sags in a defeat similar of that of a parent giving in the tantrums of the child.

It sighs.

"I want you, dear child," it explains, voice going soft. "I don't like when souls are stuck in the line between life and death, out of my sphere of influence. You should know this."

Juvia thinks back to Zeref and Mavis, recalls how they were cursed when daring to confront the law hammered down by Ankhseram for those dear to them, and nods.

"I want you out of this Limbo whatever it takes," it goes on, lowers itself face to face to her and adds, "To be fair, however, I'd rather him to fail. Two is more than one and Gray Fullbuster has always been an elusive soul, after all."

Juvia looks daggers, clenches her hands into fists. "That won't happen."

"Maybe."

"So Ankhseram does admit Juvia and Gray-sama can win?"

"Indeed. You wouldn't even be the first," it shrugs, and then Ankhseram's expression becomes dazzling with shadow and light, a caution and a foresight. "But his failure only means death once for you two; your failure means all your deaths and all your lives are mine and mine only," it says, and the words taste of doom. "You understand, right?"

Juvia gulps down the billis, the despair and the mania. She sinks her face into open hands.

 _Don't touch. Don't speak. Not until you are well out of your cage._

She wheezes.

She does understand and yet it's not enough to stop her.

* * *

Gray embraces her strongly as soon as the light of the sun baths them. There's elation behind his touch, as much as relief and everlasting sorrow, and when his legs give up on him, he brings her down to the ground with him.

"I got you," he whispers into her ear, cracks appearing in his respite. "I finally got you back. We made it. _We made it_."

Juvia shivers under the force of his words, nestles in the crook of his neck and hides. She never thought she'd have him ever again, but there he stands and she will enjoy for as long as it lasts. It's all she could have ever wished for and then some.

"Yes, Gray-sama made it," she coos faintly. "Juvia's very grateful."

Gray pauses, his mind rushing into action and the air logging in his throat. Then chokes on distress when hearing the loss in her tone.

He shakes his head and holds her face between cold hands while the happiness fades away into desolation. He searches for her eyes only to discover her shame in them. His look hardens. Juvia grimaces.

"Juvia's sorry," she whimpers. "So sorry. But Juvia had to! She couldn't allow Gray-sama to loss—"

"What did you _do_?" he asks, the syllables pitched in pain, his face darkened with worry and realization. "You shouldn't have touched me, is that? And you did it!" he cries, the pain turning into agony. "You silly woman, I'd rather you didn't!"

Her heart stops, then resumes all in the matter of seconds.

"It's okay. Juvia _promises_ ," she comforts, steady hands capturing his. "Juvia isn't going anywhere when Gray-sama's done so much for her."

"I'd like to disagree," someone says behind her. "You cannot stay after what you've done."

They twist to find Ankhseram, or what possibly might be a version of it hidden behind human hood but the smirk still discernibly its, and they recoil away in the time their breaths become gasps of horror. Ankhseram approaches them, crouches to face them, and in the shadows of its hood Gray finds the possible futures that will never be.

Gray doesn't let go of Juvia, though, pushing her behind him and placing himself between the woman he would die for and Death itself. Be dammed the consequences and the deals and life itself, he has had enough and is too tired of not fighting, and so he does by preparing, opposing, and wishing.

Let it come, he thinks, let it come and try to take away what I've struggled for.

"Stand over, brave child. You did well but her not so much, and thus she has to pay," it warns, edges closer, but Gray doesn't listen. "Or are you to defy me?

The world around him distorts, warps and bends over, the light fades into darkness and the air that makes his lungs slithers out, leaving him panting. Fear grips his heart, wrings it like a fruit and squeezes all the boldness and hope and love out of it.

There's nothing to fight for, not anymore, when death grips you in its snares and looks down upon you with the force made of existence and extinction, and Gray shrinks, shrivels and freezes, his soul icing over and only Juvia's gentle touch keeping him grounded on what is still there.

It comes slowly, hesitantly, but his head shakes. "No. I got her back," Gray manages to say. "She's staying."

"You might have got her back but she didn't abide by her own side of the deal," it sneers, swats away at him with vehemence."Hand her over, child."

Gray grinds his teeth in despondency, a retort that will bring his doom in the tip of his tongue, when a voice cuts through the oppressive atmosphere.

"She won't."

They turn around, find Juvia glaring at Anksheram who, in answer, only arches a brow.

"Pardon?"

"Juvia won't hand over her life so easily," she says. "Not to Ankhseram."

Ankhseram frowns, leers as the meaning registers and gives a step forward, his presence a heavy mantle that suffocates them.

"You agreed, child," it threatens. "Don't touch, you promised, and still did. You gambled away your own soul and lost."

 _Tell, would you like another chance?_

"She did," Juvia admits, yet unyielding with her head cast high. "But how can Juvia give away something she doesn't possess?"

"Are you saying," Ankhseram snarls, voice more of a beast than a man, "you won't pay the price you agreed upon?"

 _The price is, of course, your life._

"No," Juvia repeats, stands up. "Because Juvia's life was already Gray's a thousand times over. It's a gift she gave away with her blood." Her mouth twist with confidence and knowledge, recalls the discussion she had with Ankhseram in what seems to be eons ago. "And for that reason she doesn't have any right to give it away without his consent."

The words hang, swirl and settle around them. Gray feels flare in the pit of his stomach, the cursed blood of his body turning into a blessing, a link that prevails even beyond the grave, and knows it to be true.

He watches as Ankhseram blanches while Juvia fists her hands. He is quick when moving next to her, even quicker when he sees the retaliation coming their way and recoils back. The ground in the wake of its power blackens, dries up, and they shiver when the god gracefully slides into a stance that is menacing as it is oppressive.

Gray lock his jay stubbornly and sees Juvia straightening herself in dignity.

"You lied," Ankhseram spits, his tone dark.

Juvia swallows, holds herself together however she can.

"She did not. Juvia did told you that she isn't the owner of her own life," she remarks. "That she doesn't have anything to give."

 _Juvia doesn't have a life that is hers to give._

"But you never said so," it accuses, voice fire and ash. "You cheated with words."

Her gaze steadies over its, shrugs off the leer and the power emanating from Ankhseram, and cranes her head high above the accusations thrown at her way.

"You will learn," she says.

The air crackles with electricity, as if lightning was about struck down on them, a growl echoing over the clearing. The day becomes a starless night when Ankhseram expands and expands, his form mountainous before them, his face gone in its anger, and extends a hand that is as big as the sea.

They cower under the magnitude of their cheekiness, the flash of fury they have summoned swallowing up all that has been, is and will be. Time stops, their body shut down and it's only the certainty of having won what keeps them going without withering under the power of death and life.

Gray yells, Juvia shrieks.

The hand stills.

"You better not," Gray threatens, legs shaking though still standing. "Unless you can't keep your word."

"Three times, too; you agreed three times," Juvia clarifies. "You promised."

Ankhseram pauses.

 _And a deal thrice agreed..._

It retracts its ancient hand, slowly, agonizingly so, and contracts back to its initial size.

And then it bends over in laughter.

It laughs, and laughs, and laughs, the end a joke to it, and sneers when looking back at them.

"You did good for mortal children, I admit," Ankhseram says. "Playing by my rules and turning them against me. Not many have achieved that before. Well done indeed."

Ankhseram steps back, the hundred folds of its face relaxing, evening out, anger flickering into amusement and then gazes them with equal parts fondness and hatred. Juvia and Gray hold their breath at that, the recognizable ring of hope thundering in their minds.

Juvia perks, hand entwining with Gray's.

"So Juvia and Gray-sama won?"

Ankhseram gives them one last look, full of wonder, and waves away an arm that is wrinkled and smooth at the same time.

"Off you go. It's over and you won, and I'm not sore enough to seek retribution." it shoos, his back turning to them and voice dripping with annoyance. "The original problem is fixed, too, since you are out of the Limbo, clever child, and back into my domain although not in the side I wanted you two to be."

They share a look, buoyant as well as promising, and miss the scowl that graces the God of Life and Death.

"I don't, however, want to see you for many years," Ankhseram says, tone low. "I'm bored of you two and this game."

So they run, never looking back.

* * *

"How can Juvia trust Ankhseram will abide by the rules?"

"Of course I will. A deal thrice agreed is not to be broken, keep in mind. Not even by me," it says, rolls its shoulders and lowers its multicolor eyes with a knowing shine. "Magic works like that."

Juvia stares at the depth and the length of its existence, gapes at the milliard of ways in which Ankhseram lives by and dies by in the second.

She nods. "Juvia understands."

* * *

Gray holds her close, his blood running warm in his veins, and hums in peace. It's been a long, long time since he has last felt like this, so thriving and so at calm, and the urge to cry in happiness heightens and the nightmare of the last few hours grows fainter until it's nothing more than that, a nightmare.

He has done what he has wished for, and when he looks at Juvia, bubbly as always and taking in the world around as if it was a gift she never thought she would receive, he thinks of home. Of Fairy Tail and the days that are to come, of smiles and amending the errors of his way, of sunlight and rain and Juvia being under the blue sky.

He sighs, pleased.

But first—

"What do you wanna do now?" he asks.

She stares at him, her skin pink, her eyes shining, the very definition of alive, and his chest swells at that.

"Live," Juvia says, smiling, and he chortles. "But Juvia would rather live with you. For the rest of her life."

It tastes of honey and possibilities, of what hope might be made of, and when Juvia grasps his hands, looks in his eye with such love he might as well drown, there's only warmth in his soul.

"I'd also like that," says Gray, and sees the sun come out when Juvia smiles.

At last, his gaze settles on what is to come rather than on what has been, and discovers this might have been what he has waited for all along.

 **fin.**


End file.
